Listening on 20 Meters, right now, there's a DX station calling CQ, and all I can say is "Wow!". He's way loud and should be at the bottom of a pile up. Why not? Because he's sending way too fast with no spacing whatsoever. I was finally able to make out the call; but he was getting very few takers. Once he switched over to the memory keyer (which had some spacing in there, which made it legible), I can see that he's not only getting more takers, but that he has also been spotted on the DX cluster.
You know, if you want to be a speed demon, that's one thing. But spacing is so important. There's no point in sending so fast that you send gibberish. Even if there are no actual errors, no one is going to want to work you if they can't understand you.
So any time advantage that you feel you're gaining is probably lost by either A) repeats or B) lost opportunities due to no one wanting to work a fist like that.
You know, I'm not not an expert, by any means. But I do know bad Morse when I hear it; and that was bad. A shame really, because it could mean the difference between a lot of contacts and just a few.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
I agree Larry and I too heard some op's that were just smokin with the key!! I just pass them by as in the past I tried to work them but I am not even sure when they come back if it is my call or not they are sending......forget the exchange part.
ReplyDeleteYou don't mention what station, but since you are in NJ probably not one from Asia. I have the same here with a couple of stations from V85. They just don't have any spacing or the wrong spacing and you can hardly figure out their call signs when they send CQ. They hardly get any calls back. The other day I heard an exchange where the other party needed at least 5 overs before he got the call. He was quite decent and kept at it; I would probably have given up.
ReplyDeleteIt is just weird that these stations all come from V85. I wrote to one of them a while back explaining that I often heard him and that I would love to QSO with him (they are always strong over here and for me it would be good practice). He did improve after that, but not much and I never got a reply from him. Mind you, it was a very courteous e-mail from a fellow ham with the best interest at heart. We sure have some strange fellows amongst us.
I have a hard time understanding folks who send all their characters together--but also folks who send with a bug. There was a guy on 30m last night who was sending "X" after each QSO. Once I figured out that his "X" was really "TU", I knew when to start sending my call to him.
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